Cafe Folgers: The Gold Rush History of Folgers Coffee

The cafe Folgers story starts in Gold Rush San Francisco. In 1850, William H. Bovee opened the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills to sell roasted, ground, ready-to-brew coffee to miners, and a teenage Nantucket carpenter named James A. Folger went to work there. Folger later took control of the company, renamed it J.A. Folger & Co., and his family and salesmen grew it into a national brand that Procter & Gamble bought in 1963 and The J.M. Smucker Company acquired in 2008.

Here is a neutral, verified history of how one of America’s best-known coffee names went from a frontier mill to supermarket shelves across the country.

Gold Rush San Francisco: Why Ready-to-Brew Coffee Mattered

In 1850, San Francisco was a boomtown packed with fortune seekers. Coffee was a staple, but most people bought it as green, unroasted beans. To drink it, you had to roast the beans in a pan, grind them by hand and then brew. For a miner in a remote camp, that was a lot of work.

William H. Bovee, a young New Yorker who had been in the coffee-roasting trade back east, saw an opportunity. In 1850 he founded the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills in San Francisco. His bet was that men in mining country would pay for coffee that was already roasted and ground, so all they had to do was add hot water. It was convenience coffee, more than a century before the word became a marketing cliché.

Folgers was not the only frontier coffee brand built on that idea. Back east, the Arbuckle brothers were packaging roasted coffee for the expanding West; read their story in Arbuckles’ Ariosa: the coffee that won the West.

James A. Folger: From Nantucket to Coffee Mill Owner

James Athearn Folger came from Nantucket, Massachusetts, the island famous for its whaling industry. According to historical accounts, he was 14 when he left the island with two older brothers in 1849, and they reached San Francisco in 1850, nearly broke. While his brothers headed for the gold fields, James stayed in the city and found work. He had experience as a carpenter, and he was hired by Bovee to help build the mill.

Folger did not stay put for long. Accounts say he traveled into gold country carrying samples of the mill’s coffee, combining a bit of prospecting with selling. He later returned to San Francisco and to the coffee business.

Taking over the company

Over the following years Folger moved from employee to partner to owner. Sources give slightly different dates for each step, but the overall arc is consistent: he became a full partner in the business, then bought out the other partners. By 1872, the company carried his name as J.A. Folger & Co.

Folger ran the business until his death in 1889, when his eldest son, James A. Folger II, became president at about 26 years old.

Folgers Coffee Timeline

Going National

For decades, Folger’s was mainly a Western brand. The push east came through aggressive salesmanship. Frank P. Atha, a Folger salesman, opened a plant in Texas in the early 1900s, which helped the company expand rapidly into new regions. A roasting plant in Kansas City followed, giving the company a base in the middle of the country. Later, in 1960, construction began on a plant in New Orleans, a historic coffee port.

Meanwhile, American coffee habits were changing. Vacuum-sealed cans kept ground coffee fresher on store shelves, and supermarkets replaced the general store. Ready-to-brew canned coffee, the same convenience idea Bovee had in 1850, became the national norm. The office coffee pot and the workday coffee break became American rituals too; read the history of the coffee break to see how.

The Procter & Gamble Era

In 1963, Procter & Gamble acquired Folger’s and dropped the apostrophe, creating “Folgers.” P&G brought national distribution and big television advertising budgets, and Folgers became one of the most familiar coffee names in American homes.

Mrs. Olson and memorable advertising

• Mrs. Olson (1965–1986): actress Virginia Christine played a friendly neighbor who solved coffee problems with a can of Folgers.
• Instant coffee campaigns: in the 1970s and early 1980s, ads promoted Folgers instant coffee (Crystals) by secretly serving it to diners in upscale restaurants. For the bigger story of instant coffee, see the history of instant coffee.
• The morning jingle (from 1984): a short tune about waking up to coffee became one of the most recognizable ad songs in the US. The brand marked its 30th anniversary in 2014.
• Holiday ads: a 1985 spot about a son coming home for Christmas became a seasonal classic for many viewers.

The Smucker Years

In 2008, Procter & Gamble separated its coffee business, and in November of that year The J.M. Smucker Company acquired Folgers. Under Smucker, the brand has continued to sell ground coffee in cans and canisters, single-serve pods and instant coffee. In 2018, the company launched a premium line called 1850, a nod to the year Bovee’s mill opened in San Francisco.

The original Folger headquarters building in San Francisco also has a later chapter: in 2011, the University of San Francisco purchased it.

Why the Folgers Story Matters in Coffee History

The Folgers story captures a big shift in how Americans bought coffee:

• From green to roasted: pre-roasted, pre-ground coffee replaced home roasting.
• From local to national: regional roasters grew into national brands through railroads, salesmen and advertising.
• From store bins to sealed cans: packaging made coffee shelf-stable but often months old by the time it was brewed.

That last point is why many coffee lovers today look for fresh roasted beans: roasting close to brewing brings back aroma and sweetness that long storage can dull. For the broader sweep of coffee’s journey, from Ethiopia to the modern mug, read the history of coffee.

Cafe Folgers FAQ

When was Folgers founded?

Folgers traces its start to 1850, when William H. Bovee founded the Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills in San Francisco. James A. Folger worked there from the beginning and later took control, renaming it J.A. Folger & Co.

Who was James A. Folger?

James Athearn Folger was a young man from Nantucket, Massachusetts, who arrived in San Francisco during the Gold Rush in 1850. He started as a carpenter at Bovee’s coffee mill and eventually became its owner.

Who owns Folgers now?

The J.M. Smucker Company has owned Folgers since November 2008. Before that, Procter & Gamble owned the brand from 1963.

Why did Folgers drop the apostrophe?

The name changed from Folger’s to Folgers after Procter & Gamble acquired the company in 1963. Since then, the brand has used the name without the apostrophe.

From Gold Rush Mill to Morning Staple

Folgers began with a simple idea: coffee that is ready to brew. More than 170 years later, that convenience still matters, and so does freshness. Feel Espresso roasts every order 1–5 days before delivery. If you love a classic, full-bodied morning cup, try our Breakfast Blend, our smooth House Blend, or the frontier-spirited Cowboy Blend with cocoa, caramel and vanilla notes.